On the one hand, hydraulic fracturing has been around for over 60 years.  On the other hand, it hasn’t.  High-volume, horizontal slickwater fracturing is a recent phenomenon.  Its use has opened up vast areas of potential resource development – from the oil of the Bakken to the natural gas of the Marcellus shale – that previously had been considered too expensive to develop.  The public has a right to ask questions and be concerned.

I agree with Steffy.  Encana’s response – “The EPA’s draft report and current view is based on a possibility, not a conclusion built upon peer-reviewed science.the study” – is a irrelevant.  In the press release that accompanies the report, the EPA clearly states that the next step in the process is a 30-day, peer-review process to be led by a panel of independent scientists.

Public policy is all about managing possiblities, especially environmental public policy.  And that is exactly what the EPA is doing.

—

Shale Gas the “New” Oil Sands

First published in Oilweek, November 2010

As opposition to shale gas development – and more specifically hydraulic fracturing, or fracing – gains ground in Colorado, Pennsylvania, New York and beyond, one has to ask the question: Is shale gas the new oilsands?

The “natural gas is green” contingent (including Randy Eresman, president and chief executive officer of Encana, and Texas financier T. Boone Pickens) likes to cite the fact that burning natural gas is a low-greenhouse gas alternative to burning coal for electricity generation or gasoline in cars.

But while climate change concerns might resonate well with those in New York and Los Angeles, rural America is more concerned about the immediate effects of shale gas development and fracing on their land and water than they are about the greenhouse gas advantages of burning natural gas.

Enter first-time filmmaker Josh Fox and his documentary Gasland, which premiered on HBO television this past summer after winning a jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Fox lives in northeastern Pennsylvania on the Delaware River. Above ground: bucolic bliss. Below ground: Marcellus Shale.

The story is compelling and personal. According to Fox, he decided to make the film after receiving an offer of US$100,000 from an energy company to drill on his 19.5 acres of land. Unsure of what signing the lease might mean, Fox embarked on a cross-country road trip in search of people who have shale gas development on their land.

The story is the same in town after town. Home after home. Kitchen after kitchen. Farmers show him sickly, emaciated cattle that are losing their hair. Husbands and wives set fire to their tap water. A woman lets Fox peer into her deep freeze. It is full of dead animals. Killed, she claims, by a frac fluid spill in a creek on her land. She is saving the animals so that some government department – she is not sure which one – might test them for chemicals. Fox gathers water samples at each location, to be analyzed at some later date.

The film is a nightmare for natural gas producers – many of whom mobilized quickly to debunk its arguments. (See www.energyindepth.org/2010/06/debunking-gasland sponsored by, among others, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and many of its state-level equivalents.) It is a boon for environmentalists and people predisposed ?? distrust big business and the bureaucrats that regulate it. In fact, for this latter group, the film’s timing was perfect.

In March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated a comprehensive review to investigate the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing might have on water quality and public health. This review, said EPA officials, would include a series of public hearings in Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania and New York.

In June, Representatives Diana DeGette (D-Denver) and Jared Polis (D-Boulder) introduced the Fracking [sic] Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act. The act would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and give the EPA authority over hydraulic fracturing. It would also, among other things, require companies to disclose the (now proprietary and confidential) chemicals in frac fluids. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. (D-Pennsylvania) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) introduced a twin bill in the Senate. Testimony given and received during the hearings prior to the introduction of these bills figured prominently in Fox’s film.

In August, the EPA had to postpone a public session in upstate New York – twice – after local county officials said they wouldn’t be able to cope with the sheer number of attendees, possible protests and rallies. The meetings finally came together in September.

Meanwhile, in Paonia, Colorado, Dr. Theo Colborn (featured in Fox’s film) released the report Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective and called for full disclosure of all frac fluid chemicals. Dr. Colborn founded the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to compiling and disseminating the scientific evidence on the health and environmental problems caused by low-dose exposure to chemicals that interfere with development and function in humans.

In September, the EPA issued “voluntary” information requests to nine natural gas service companies. BJ Services, Complete Production Services, Halliburton, Key Energy Services, Patte rson -UTI, RPC, Schlumberger, Superior Well Services and Weatherford were all asked to provide information on the chemical composition of fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process, data on the impacts of the chemicals on human health and the environment, standard operating procedures at their hydraulic fracturing sites and the locations of siies where fracturing has been conducted.

According to the EPA, this information would be used as the basts for gathering further detailed information on a representative selection of sites. As EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson stated in a press release: “This scientifically rigorous study will help us understand the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water – a concern that has been raised by Congress and the American people. By sharing information about the chemicals and methods they are using, these companies will help us make a thorough and efficient review of hydraulic fracturing and determine the best path forward.”

The companies were given seven days to respond to the request and 30 days to provide the information. Some of the named service companies have already said that they will comply with the request. In an email to the New York Times, Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy G. Mann said, “Halliburton supports and continues to comply with state, local and federal requirements promoting the forthright disclosure of the chemical additives that typically comprise less than one-half of one percent of our hydraulic fracturing solutions. We view this both as a means of enhancing public safety, and as a way to engage the public in a straightforward manner.”

On the one hand, hydraulic fracturing has been around for over 60 years. It was first used commercially in 1949. Some estimate that hydraulic fracturing has been undertaken at over one million wells.

On the other hand, high-volume, horizontal slickwater fracturing is a recent phenomenon. Its use has opened up vast areas of potential resource development – from the oil of the Bakken to the natural gas of the Marcellus shale – that previously had been considered too expensive to develop.

Opponents have argued that the mishandling of frac fluid has resulted in degraded air quality and contaminated groundwater that is damaging to both the environment and human health.

Industry representatives have argued that these concerns are unfounded. They point out that fracturing operations happen far below the surface and far below the groundwater table and posit that the air quality and groundwater contamination problems shown in Gasland are more likely to have come from old wells that have been improperly plugged and abandoned.

Butin a post-Gulf Coast oil spill environment, the public and some members of Congress remain unconvinced. The arguments being aired by the opposing sides of shale gas development are eerily reminiscent of the last several years of the oilsands wars.

Leah Lawrence

And even if it is true that a majority of the people who voted for her were women (nobody really knows as the PC Party doesn’t release demographic information about voters – but let’s not let lack of data interfere with rhetoric), that doesn’t make her victory any less legitimate.

When Premier-Designate Alison Redford is sworn in on Friday, she will be the eighth woman to be sworn in as a premier of a Canadian province or territory.  Three conservatives, three liberals and two non-partisans.  And isn’t that political distribution exactly as it should be – as diverse as women themselves?

Rita Johnston was the first.  She took the helm of the British Columbia Social Credit Party in 1991.  Then came Nellie Cournoyea in the Northwest Territories (1991-1995), Catherine Calbeck in Prince Edward Island (1993-1996) and Pat Duncan in the Yukon (2000-2002).

Four of the eight are in office today:  Eva Aariak in Nunavut, Kathy Dunderdale in Newfoundland and Labrador, Christie Clark in British Columbia and, of course, Redford.

And good on them.  The depth, breadth and diversity of our political leadership is increasing.  I am still waiting for some political commentators to catch up.

My money is on worse.

The U.S. federal government has borrowed to pay its bills for 59 of the last 71 years.  It hasn’t posted a budget surplus since 2000.  Tuesday’s last minute deal will not change this trend.

At some point the chronic deficit chicken has to come home to roost.

In the real world, you cannot continuously spend more than you make.

In the real world, when you borrow money from one group of people to pay off another it is called a Ponzi scheme.

In the real world, eventually you have to pay off your debts – even if you are the U.S. federal government.

And when you are forced to deal with chronic deficits in the face of a continuing economic recession that has left almost 15 million Americans unemployed, your options are, to put it mildly, limited.

Moral outrage over government cutting and spending runs high.  Politicians are dammed if they do, and dammed if they don’t.  Armchair quarterbacks are a dime a dozen.  Me included.

So I decided to put my skills to the test by playing America Public Radio’s online game Budget Hero (see http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/budget_hero/).  I encourage you to play too.

Your mission, if you so choose it, is to play at being a member of Congress or the president.  You choose what taxes to raise and what programs to cut.  You will suffer the consequences.  (Well, lucky for you, not really.)

First step:  choose your “values”.  Do you favour “efficient government” and cutting spending?  Or “competitive advantage” and more funding for science and technology, education and innovation?  Or maybe you lean towards policies that support energy independence or the environment.

Next, you chose policies.  Tax.  Spend.  Cut.  The game provides instant feedback on how policy choices affect deficits and accumulated debt going forward and whether these choices conform to your professed values.

U.S. budget expenditures fall into nine categories:  defense and diplomacy; schools and kids; science and nature; housing and living; infrastructure; health care; social security; interest on debt; and miscellaneous.

At US$1.5 trillion a year (all amounts are in US dollars), the biggest expenditure is health care.  Among other things, this line item includes Medicare for seniors and Medicade for individuals with low incomes.  Policy choices include:  increasing drug costs for wealthy seniors; raising Medicare eligibility from age 65 to age 67; and either adding a public health insurance plan to “Obamacare” or scrapping Obamacare in favour of Republican and Tea Party-favourite Paul Ryan’s health care plan.

At $1.3 trillion, the second biggest line item is Social Security.  Two options here:  raise the age at which Americans are eligible for social security from 66 (soon to be 67) to 70; and/or slow the increase in Social Security benefits by tying them to consumer prices instead of wages.

Third is spending on defense and diplomacy at just over $1.1 trillion.  The U.S. spends more on its military than any other country in the world – more than the next 15 countries combined.  Options here include cutting (or increasing) military spending, foreign aid for AIDS programs, cleaning up defense nuclear waste dumps, and funding for homeland security.

Fourth, at $800 billion, is interest paid on debt.  No choices here.  In theory, the U.S. government would never choose to default on its debt.  If they did, the global economy would be in deep doo-doo.  Enough said.

The rest of the expense categories are:  housing and living subsidies for low income Americans and local economic development subsidies ($360 billion); infrastructure including roads, rail and waterworks ($284 billion); miscellaneous expenditures including oversight and regulation of markets and consumer products, enforcement of immigration policies and funding for the arts and humanities ($154 billion); schools and kids ($121 billion); and science and nature including scientific research, oversight of the environment and national parks, and agricultural production ($104 billion).

Lastly, there is the option to raise or lower taxes.  For example:  increase the gas tax; phase out homeowners’ mortgage interest deductions; and/or end (or increase) tax breaks for extractive industries.

The U.S. debt to GDP ratio is 62 percent.  My goal was to reduce it by half – bringing it in line with Canada’s.

A few tentative cuts got me nowhere, so I threw my values out the window and started slashing and burning.  To no avail.  After cutting troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan and freezing further military spending, cutting discretionary spending by 10 percent across the board, eliminating federal education funding, indexing the minimum income tax to inflation, increasing taxes on extractive industries, and eliminating the Department of Energy, I could only reduce the U.S. debt to GDP ratio to about 40 percent over the next ten years.

Thank goodness for my armchair quarterback status because, if I were an elected official, my guess is I wouldn’t be getting re-elected any time soon.  Playing Budget Hero teaches you that the choices for U.S. politicians aren’t theoretical.  Change will require politicians with nerves of steel and a motivated electorate with the discipline to stay the course over the long run.  Good luck with that.

Think about it.  Hero or heroine arrives on the scene.  Times are good.  External force of evil intercedes (e.g. an evil king, an evil alien invading force, whatever).  Things go bad, often really bad.  Then, eventually with time, good prevails over evil.  And the world, once again, returns to equilibrium.

The inverse is also possible.  As are multiple corollaries.  Then comes the sequel.

The rhythms and patterns that underlie science and engineering are but stories.  If only we would learn to tell them better.  And learn their historic morals.  We would all be better off.

A friend who is on the cutting edge of green technology suggested that I was being short-sighted.  Why rely on Alberta’s grid?  Why not install a PV array and generate my own electricity?

Mea Culpa.  I love solar PV.  I can’t help myself.  Those mono- and poly-crystaline panels are just so darn cool.  So, the idea of buying a plug-in electric vehicle and charging the on-board batteries with solar PV is intriguing.  (For those of you recoiling on the potential price tag, read on.)

Over the past year, my PV obsession has taken me to Springbank, Phoenix, Denver and Regina.  Last week it took me to Raleigh, North Carolina for the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) Conference.

In a sparsely attended session at 8:30 in the evening, Dan Davids, president of Plug-In America, Rob Threlkeld, an environmental services manager with General Motors, and Dr. Vincenzo Marano, a researcher from Ohio State University’s Center for Automotive Research, tackled questions about electric vehicles and their compatibility with solar PV.  The Mac versus PCesque ad Gasoline isn’t right for cell phones (pictured above) is courtesy of Plug-In America.

Recall that there are two types of electric vehicles – ones like the Chevy Volt, that have to be plugged in, and gasoline-electric like the Honda Insight, that do not.  The information below relates to plug-in electric vehicles, so called PEVs.

A typical estimate for electric vehicle fuel efficiency is 0.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity per mile (0.124 kilowatt hours per kilometre).  If you drive 40 kilometres a day, that is 5 kilowatt-hours.

Some car companies are integrating PV panels into vehicle design, but these panels are used to power interior accessories and aren’t big enough to keep the car’s batteries charged and re-charged, no matter where you live.

In Calgary, where I live, we average about 3.6 average daily peak sun hours.  This number varies greatly over the year.  In December, we only get one hour of peak sun a day.  In June, just less than six.

With 3.6 prime sun hours, you would need 1.4 kilowatts of PV, or six panels at 240 watts each, to cover your 40-kilometre road trip.  (This does not take into account losses due to temperature variability and other design factors.)  With panel areas at about 18 square feet (1.7 square metres), that’s a roof size of 108 square feet (10 square metres).

So, to run my car on PV, I would need to put PV panels on a south-facing roof on my garage or house.  Luckily, this isn’t as difficult as it used to be.  In 2008, the Alberta government passed regulations that allow people to install grid-tied micro-generation facilities (including solar PV) on their roofs.  In this way, and with a little planning, it would be possible to use PV to power a PEV.

PEVs are plugged into 120 or 240 volt outlets.  These kinds of outlets are typical in a residential setting.  The former feeds your big screen TV.  The latter your stove.  That being said, you usually won’t find a 240 volt outlet in your garage, so if you want to go that way, you will need an electrician to install one.

Next comes the design and installation of your PV array.  PV panels often have a maximum power point voltage of around 30 volts.  Therefore, a six panel system is more than adequate to get you to the 120 volts required for Level 1 charging, but not quite enough to reach the 240 volts for Level 2.  The lower voltage means a longer wait to get to full charge – likely between 8 and 15 hours, depending upon how low the battery is.

The bottom line is that it is technically feasible to buy a plug-in hybrid in Alberta and run it on grid-tied PV.

Now let’s compare the costs.

Assume that, on average, I drive 40-kilometres every day.  In one year, I will drive 14,600 kilometres.

The operating costs of a gasoline vehicle include gas costs and maintenance.  According to Statistics Canada, average unleaded gasoline prices in Calgary have varied between 97.5 and 117.2 cents per litre over the last five months.  Gas prices are usually more expensive in the summer than the winter, so I’ll assume an average gasoline price of 117.2 cents.  A new gasoline-powered VW Beetle has fuel efficiency ratings of 11.8 litres per 100 kilometers in the city and 8.1 litres per 100 kilometres highway.  Assuming 55% highway driving and 45% city driving, the fuel cost for 1 year is $1750.  Add about $500 a year for regular maintenance, and the total annual cost is $2250.  (Fuel economy numbers and calculations of weighted fuel costs are estimated using www.fueleconomy.gov)

The operating cost of the PEV would be the electricity cost.  If I don’t install a grid-tied PV system, I will need to buy grid electricity to charge my PEV.  The cost of electricity (excluding fixed charges) in Calgary is about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour.  Assuming a Chevy Volt uses on average 0.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity per mile (0.124 kilowatt hours per kilometre), the fuel cost for 1 year is $1820.  According to Plug-In America, maintenance costs are very low.  In the absence of a number I will assume $200, then the total annual cost for the electric vehicle is $2020.

The cost to install a six-panel, 1.4 kilowatt l PV system is likely between $8,000 and $10,000.  Given the assumed cost of electricity, the simple payback of this system would be between 5 and 6 years.  (I could also sign up for Enmax’s forthcoming solar PV program.  This would eliminate the upfront cost, but also the payback.)

But here is the kicker.  The price of a 2010 VW Beetle (no word on what the new model will cost in 2011) is between $18,000 ad $26,000.  A 2011 Chevy Volt starts at $40,000.  So even though I may be able to make the annual operating costs go around, the upfront capital cost of the PEV is a killer.

Plug-In America is right that gasoline isn’t right for cell phones.  And they may well be right that some day it won’t be right for cars.  But for the moment, the winners are still Big Oil and Big Automakers.

Enough about PV.  How about a discussion about wind?

“You guys have a collective problem that you have done a terrible job of marketing the technology, and that is on you,” Immelt told a packed audience in Calgary at an event hosted by the Calgary and Canadian Chambers of Commerce. “The fact that you’ve allowed yourself to be painted into this corner is ridiculous.”

Immelt encouraged oil sands producers to think about where they want to be ten years from now, to set a stretch targets for reduction in water and energy use.

Immelt puts GE’s money where his mouth is.  GE invests 6 percent of its industrial revenue back into R&D on an annual basis.  By comparison, most studies show oil and gas companies invest less than 1 percent.

He also had a challenge for Alberta and Canada.  “If I come to a place like Canada and say what is your energy policy, and if you can’t answer that question, you flunked that one from a competitiveness standpoint,” said Immelt.

But an energy policy alone is not enough.  “The challenge overall for Canadian economy is that nobody has been able to make the transition from a natural resource-rich environment to be an industrial powerhouse.”  (Well, the United States has made the transition, but that took over 100 years.)

Notice Immelt didn’t say “service economy powerhouse”.  In fact, he thinks that a focus on developing a service economy was one of the major mistakes of the U.S. and many European economies over the last several decades.

“I think the U.S. and maybe some countries in western Europe had this intellectual case for itself where we would run massive trade deficits and we would slide from an industrial powerhouse to being a service economy.  Maybe that was a good chapter in somebody’s business book, but it was a lousy strategy.  Great countries don’t have trade deficits.  Great countries don’t export their manufacturing base.  Great countries – great companies – compete.”

Until recently, Canada has done well in this regard, posting first trade deficit since 1976 in 2009.  This trade deficit persists today.

Which brings me to Immelt’s larger message:  Leadership.

GE studies companies as diverse as Google and the U.S. Military Academy about every five years to learn about leadership.  In their most recent study, GE found that good leaders have the following characteristics:

1. Good leaders are analytical thinkers and they are able to leverage global relationships.  They are skills-based entrepreneurs.  They find out who the naysayers are and bring them in.  They know that there is a massive amount of information out there, and they bring it in, understand it, and make decisions on it.
2. Good leaders execute with ambiguity.  The world is more volatile.  Until a few months ago, nobody had thought about Greece for 2000 years.  Then a few months ago, Greece almost brought down the European Union.  Immelt thinks that we live in a world now where every two or three years we are going to be shocked by unexpected change.
3. Good leaders are system thinkers.  They need to be able to bring together disparate thoughts or ideas and come up with a solution.  (Immelt recommended Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management, as someone whose books on system thinking he reads.)

Which brings me back to Canada, Alberta and the oil sands.

Immelt told an MBA class at Stanford last year (see video above) that while energy is a somewhat unique industry.  Does it present an innovation challenge?  Kind of.  But, it is more of a public policy challenge.  “Oil prices are set today, but your assets are 40 to 50 years old.  The only bridge is public policy.”  And while energy is a manufacturing problem, first in or “best in breed” solutions almost never win.  It’s second best solutions win.  So the line of sight from investment in R&D and innovation isn’t as direct as a CEO might like it to be.  “So if you are in energy, you better be a problem solver, because vision isn’t going to get you there.”

Canadians, Albertans and oil sands producers pride themselves on solving problems.  So let’s get out of the corner and start driving change.

This was the message Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine in The Next Industrial Revolution Atoms are the New Bits brought to Calgary as part of Mount Royal University’s “legacy of ideas” speaker series.

Anderson talked of his grandfather.  By day, he worked for a big company.  A nameless cog in the industrial machine.  By night he was in inventor in his basement.  But the only means available to Anderson’s grandfather to take his inventions to market was to patent them, thereby losing all the value-added potential that might accrue to someone with the means by which to manufacture and market them.

Flash forward.  Today, inventors have more options available to them.  The factors of production are becoming democratized.  And we are just starting to learn what that might mean.

An example.  Local Motors.  Local Motors is a new kind of car company.  It all started with John B. Rogers.  In 2004, Rogers was a marine stationed in the Persian Gulf.  In his downtime, he started reading Winning the Oil Endgame by environmentalist Amory Lovins.  (The book can be downloaded for free.)  In the book, Lovins talks about how people can reduce their dependence on fossil fuels.

While the entrepreneurs running Tesla and Better Place are focused on running cars on alternative fuels, Rogers thought about things differently.  For him an environmentally-focused car company was about producing vehicles locally, on demand in micro-factories.  Buyers would really know how their car was made – in fact, they would participate.

In March 2008, Local Motors made its official debut.  Designers submit sketch and plans for their dream cars.  Others add their ideas.  In no time, there were thousands of active contributors to the site, uploading drawings, commenting on each others’ work, and voting on designs.  Open source design comes to the automotive industry.

Ninety-nine percent of the components in the car are “off the shelf”, so the next logical step is to build one.  Rogers sells that two.  He calls it buying the “ownership experience” and it begins at the Local Motors micro-factory in Phoenix, Arizona.  Once there, they suit you up with a pair of coveralls and the master mechanic guides you through the process of building your car.  Want to build with your son or daughter?  No problem.  All for the cool price of about $50,000.  (Could this be the answer to my quest for a more environmental car as discussed in previous posts?!?  Well, maybe not – see the video below of the Rally Fighter blasting around Baja)

An Internet and open source-enabled car company started with start-up capital of about US$4 million.  I can’t wait to see what the entrepreneurs of the Next Industrial Revolution think of next.

Over the holidays, Mike Doyle, President of the Canadian Association of Geophysical Contractors emailed me with further food for thought.  Mike owns  one of those Chevy Yukon Flex Fuel vehicles that I mentioned in my previous post.  “Flex fuel” means E85 and gasoline.  I had written that there were no E85 stations in Canada.  Mike let me know that there are four:  two in Ottawa, one in Guelph, one in Chatham.

But here is the kicker:  heat content.  The energy content of one litre of gas varies in over the year but on average is about 34.8 Megajoules per litre.  By comparison, ethanol is 21.2 Megajoules a litre.  This means that for every 1 gallon of gasoline Mike burns in his Yukon, he would burn 1.6 litres of ethanol.  So, Mike wrote, even if he could buy E85 in Alberta, he would have to fill up twice as often.  And to ensure it was the environmental choice he was looking for, he would needs to ask questions about it’s source.  Some studies are showing that the environmental benefits of corn-based ethanol are not the slam dunk that advocates would like them to be.

Mike also reminded my that in addition to gasoline and diesel, natural gas is also an option.  Mea culpa.  Years ago, when I worked with Climate Change Central, we partnered with ATCO Gas to bring a natural gas refueling station to Banff.  Today,  ATCO Gas has 12 stations across Alberta, including 3 in Calgary.  These stations are open to the public.  Refueling times are comparable with gasoline and, given today’s natural gas prices, are a relative bargain.  On January 12, the pump price was equivalent to $0.76 a litre.

And finally, a fuel I  want to love is biodiesel.  Anita Burke (who lives in Boulder, Colorado and who I interviewed about the Gulf Oil Spill in 2010) drives a vintage diesel Mercedes swears by the stuff.  It’s available in Vancouver and Edmonton, but unfortunately short of mixing it up in my garage, the only place in southern Alberta that I might buy the stuff closed its doors before Christmas.

Next up:  New Beetle Finale

This blog is part of a series.  Click below on “New Beetle” to see the entire series.

Reality is somewhat different.

In my neighbourhood, the pumps have two choices:  gasoline and diesel.   Chris thought he might have seen an E85 station, so the other day I accosted the unsuspecting owner of a flex-fuel Chevy Yukon in a grocery store parking lot.  “Where do you buy E85?”  I asked.  “Couldn’t tell you.  Maybe Ontario?”

Back to the Internet.  According to e85prices.com, E85 isn’t available in Canada.  It is available in 11 U.S. states at just over 2,000 stations.  The Canadian Renewable Fuels Association’s website is full of arguments in favour of governments subsidizing its members, but nowhere does it say when E85 ethanol might be available to consumers.  I am willing to bet that it won’t be readily available for the 10 or 15 years we will own our next car.

The same is true of plug-in electric vehicles.  First there is the problem of “refueling” stations.  While A Better Place is building electric vehicle infrastructure in places like Israel and Japan.  Places with low population densities (read Alberta) are not a priority.  Also, as I noted in a comment to an earlier post, given Alberta’s power comes primarily from coal, a plug-in vehicle will likely be more polluting than an equivalent gasoline vehicle, not less.  (Argonne National Laboratory’s GREET model estimates 15% more polluting or more.)  Sorry all you Chevrolet Volt fans, I didn’t mean to burst your bubble.

Long story made short, all that breathless reporting about the next-generation fuels is just that, next generation.  For now the choices are unglamorous:  diesel or gasoline?